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October 20 2022

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2012 is a 2009 American science fiction disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich. It was produced by Harald Kloser, Mark Gordon, and Larry J. Franco, and written by Kloser and Emmerich. The film stars John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Thandiwe Newton (credited as Thandie Newton), Danny Glover, and Woody Harrelson. Based on the 2012 phenomenon, its plot follows geologist Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) and novelist Jackson Curtis (Cusack) as they experience an eschatological sequence of events including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, megatsunamis and a global flood, all of which were imagined by subscribers to the hypothesis.

Filming, planned for Los Angeles, began in Vancouver in early August 2008 and wrapped up in mid-October 2008. After a lengthy advertising campaign which included the creation of a website from its main characters point of view and a viral marketing website on which filmgoers could register for a lottery number to save them from the ensuing disaster, 2012 was released on November 13, 2009, to commercial success, grossing over $769 million worldwide against a production budget of $200 million, becoming the fifth highest-grossing film of 2009. The film received mixed reviews, with praise for its visual effects, but criticism of its screenplay and runtime.

Plot

In 2009, American geologist Adrian Helmsley visits astrophysicist Satnam Tsurutani in India and learns that an exotic new type of neutrino from a huge solar flare is heating the Earth s core. In Washington, Helmsley informs White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser, who brings him to meet President Thomas Wilson.

In 2010, Wilson and other world leaders begin building nine arks, each capable of carrying 100,000 people, in the Himalayas in Tibet. Nima, a Buddhist monk, is evacuated, and his brother Tenzin joins the ark project. Tickets are secretly sold to the rich for €1 billion per person to fund the construction.

In 2012, struggling science-fiction writer Jackson Curtis is a chauffeur for Russian billionaire Yuri Karpov. Jackson s former wife Kate and their children, Noah and Lilly, live with Kate s boyfriend, plastic surgeon and amateur pilot Gordon Silberman. Jackson takes Noah and Lilly camping in Yellowstone National Park. When they enter an area fenced off by the United States Army, they are caught and brought to Adrian. After being released, they meet conspiracy theorist Charlie Frost, who hosts a radio show from the park.

Charlie shows Jackson his video of Charles Hapgood s theory that polar shift and the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar predict a 2012 phenomenon and the end of the world. Charlie reveals that anyone attempting to inform the public was killed. The sudden departure of Karpov s sons Alec and Oleg makes Jackson realize Charlie is right. He rents a Cessna 340A to rescue his family. As the disaster unfolds, causing a massive earthquake, Jackson gets his family to the airport. Gordon gets the rented plane airborne just before the coast slides into the ocean.

The group flies to Yellowstone to retrieve Charlie s map of the arks location. The Yellowstone Caldera erupts. Charlie stays behind to finish his broadcast and dies in the eruption. The group barely escapes with Charlie s map. Realizing they need a larger plane, the group lands in Las Vegas.

Adrian, Carl, and First Daughter Laura fly to the arks, while President Wilson remains in Washington to address the nation. With the Vice-President s helicopter going down and the Speaker of the House missing, Carl becomes the acting commander-in-chief. Jackson runs into Yuri, Alec and Oleg, Yuri s girlfriend Tamara, and their pilot Sasha. Sasha and Gordon fly them out in an Antonov An-500 as the Yellowstone ash cloud envelops Las Vegas. Billions die worldwide, including President Wilson.

Their plane runs out of fuel as they reach China. Sasha lands the jet, as the others escape in a Bentley Continental Flying Spur stored in the hold, but is killed when the plane slides off a cliff. The others are spotted by Chinese Air Force helicopters. Yuri and his sons have tickets, and are taken to the arks, but everyone else is abandoned. Nima picks them up and takes them to the arks with his grandparents.

With Tenzin s help, they stow away on Ark 4, assigned to the U.S. While welding the door closed, Tenzin is injured and Gordon is crushed to death by the gears. An impact driver gets lodged in the gears, jamming a boarding gate open, which prevents the ship s engines from starting.

With a large tsunami approaching, Carl orders the loading gates be closed though most people have not boarded. Adrian begs the captain and the other arks not to perpetrate such a cruel act. The loading gates are opened and the passengers quickly board the arks. Yuri falls to his death in a canyon as he pushes his sons into an ark. The back of the ark fills with water and is set adrift, heading for Mount Everest. Adrian rushes to clear the gears, but the flood doors close, trapping the stowaways and drowning Tamara. Jackson hears Adrian say the gears must be cleared to close the gate and start the engines, but the chamber is flooded. Jackson swims to clear the gears. Noah follows him and together they dislodge the tool. The crew regains control of the Ark just in time, while Jackson and Noah make it back safely.

Twenty-seven days later, the waters are receding. The arks approach the Cape of Good Hope, where the Drakensberg mountains have now become the highest mountain range on Earth. Adrian and Laura begin a relationship, while Jackson and Kate rekindle their romance and reunite their family.

Alternate ending

An alternate ending appears in the film s DVD release. After Captain Michaels (the Ark 4 captain) announces that they are heading for the Cape of Good Hope, Adrian learns by phone that his father, Harry, and Harry s friend Tony survived a megatsunami which capsized their cruise ship Genesis. Adrian and Laura strike up a friendship with the Curtis family; Kate thanks Laura for taking care of Lily, Laura tells Jackson that she enjoyed his book Farewell Atlantis, and Jackson and Adrian have a conversation reflecting the events of the worldwide crisis. Jackson returns Noah s cell phone, which he recovered during the Ark 4 flood. The ark finds the shipwrecked Genesis and her survivors on a beach.

Cast

John Cusack as Jackson Curtis, a struggling writer and a father of two children.
Chiwetel Ejiofor as geologist Adrian Helmsley, chief science advisor to the U.S. President.
Amanda Peet as Kate Curtis, a medical student and Jackson s former wife.
Oliver Platt as Carl Anheuser, the White House Chief of Staff.
Thandiwe Newton (credited as Thandie Newton) as Laura Wilson, an art expert and First Daughter.
Danny Glover as Thomas Wilson, the President of the United States and Laura s father.
Woody Harrelson as Charlie Frost, a fringe science conspiracy theorist and radio talk-show host.
Liam James as Noah Curtis, Jackson and Kate s son.
Morgan Lily as Lilly Curtis, Jackson and Kate s daughter.
Tom McCarthy as Gordon Silberman, a plastic surgeon/pilot and Kate s boyfriend.
Zlatko Burić as Yuri Karpov, a Russian billionaire and former boxer.
Beatrice Rosen as Tamara Jikan, Yuri s girlfriend.
Alexandre Haussmann as Alec Karpov, one of Yuri s twin sons.
Philippe Haussmann as Oleg Karpov, Yuri s other twin son.
Johann Urb as Sasha, Yuri s pilot.
John Billingsley as Frederick West, a colleague of Adrian.
Ryan McDonald as Scotty, Adrian and Frederick s assistant.
Jimi Mistry as Satnam Tsurutani, an Indian astrophysicist who discovers the neutrinos which are warming Earth s crust.
Agam Darshi as Aparna Tsurutani, Satnam s wife.
Chin Han as Tenzin, an ark worker who attempts to save his family.
Osric Chau as Nima, a Buddhist monk and Tenzin s brother.
Tseng Chang as Grandfather Sonam, their grandfather.
Lisa Lu as Grandmother Sonam, their grandmother.
George Segal as Tony Delgatto, a jazz singer
Blu Mankuma as Harry Helmsley, Adrian s father and Tony Delgatto s vocal partner.
Stephen McHattie as Captain Michaels, the captain of Ark 4.
Patrick Bauchau as Roland Picard, the director of the Louvre who is killed with a car bomb by the U.S. government
Henry O as Lama Rinpoche, a Buddhist monk.
Karin Konoval as Sally, President Wilson s secretary.
Michael Buffer as himself, announcing for a boxing match in Las Vegas.
Dean Marshall as the Ark 4 communications officer.
Zinaid Memišević as Sergey Makarenko, the President of Russia.
Merrilyn Gann as the German Chancellor.
Lyndall Grant as Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California.
Vincent Cheng as a Chinese colonel.
Leonard Tenisci as the Italian Prime Minister.
Parm Soor as the Saudi Arabia Prince who helps to pay for the construction of the Arks.
Elizabeth Richard as Queen Elizabeth II.
Frank C. Turner as Preacher.

Production

Development

Graham Hancock s Fingerprints of the Gods was listed in 2012 s credits as the film s inspiration, and Emmerich said in a Time Out interview: I always wanted to do a biblical flood movie, but I never felt I had the hook. I first read about the Earth s Crust Displacement Theory in Graham Hancock s Fingerprints of the Gods. He and composer-producer Harald Kloser worked closely together, co-writing a spec script (also titled 2012) which was marketed to studios in February 2008. A number of studios heard a budget projection and story plans from Emmerich and his representatives, a process repeated by the director after Independence Day (1996) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004).

Later that month, Sony Pictures Entertainment received the rights to the spec script. Planned for distribution by Columbia Pictures, 2012 cost less than its budget; according to Emmerich, the film was produced for about $200 million.

Filming, originally scheduled to begin in Los Angeles in July 2008, began in Kamloops, Savona, Cache Creek and Ashcroft, British Columbia in early August 2008 and wrapped up in mid-October 2008. With a Screen Actors Guild strike looming, the film s producers made a contingency plan to salvage it. Uncharted Territory, Digital Domain, Double Negative, Scanline, and Sony Pictures Imageworks were hired to create 2012 s computer-animated visual effects.

The film depicts the destruction of several cultural and historical icons around the world. Emmerich said that the Kaaba was considered for selection, but Kloser was concerned about a possible fatwā against him.

Marketing

2012 was marketed by the fictional Institute for Human Continuity, featuring a book by Jackson Curtis (Farewell Atlantis), streaming media, blog updates and radio broadcasts from zealot Charlie Frost on his website, This Is The End. On November 12, 2008, the studio released the first trailer for 2012. With a tsunami surging over the Himalayas and a purportedly scientific message that the world would end in 2012, the trailer s message was that international governments were not preparing their populations for the event. The trailer ended with a suggestion to viewers to find out the truth by entering 2012 on a search engine. The Guardian called the film s marketing deeply flawed , associating it with websites that make even more spurious claims about 2012 .

The studio introduced a viral marketing website operated by the Institute for Human Continuity, where filmgoers could register for a lottery number to be part of a small population which would be rescued from the global destruction. David Morrison of NASA, who received over 1,000 inquiries from people who thought the website was genuine, condemned it. I ve even had cases of teenagers writing to me saying they are contemplating suicide because they don t want to see the world end , Morrison said. I think when you lie on the internet and scare children to make a buck, that is ethically wrong. Another marketing website promoted Farewell Atlantis, a fictional novel about the events of 2012.

Comcast organized a roadblock campaign to promote the film in which a two-minute scene was broadcast on 450 American commercial television networks, local English-language and Spanish-language stations, and 89 cable outlets during a ten-minute window between 10:50 and 11:00 pm Eastern and Pacific Time on October 1, 2009. The scene featured the destruction of Los Angeles and ended with a cliffhanger, with the entire 5:38 clip available on Comcast s Fancast website. According to Variety, The stunt will put the footage in front of 90% of all households watching ad-supported TV, or nearly 110 million viewers. When combined with online and mobile streams, that could increase to more than 140 million .

Soundtrack

The film s score was composed by Harald Kloser and Thomas Wander. Singer Adam Lambert contributed a song to the film, Time for Miracles , originally written by Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider; Lambert expressed his gratitude in an MTV interview. The 24-song soundtrack includes Fades Like a Photograph by Filter and It Ain t the End of the World by George Segal and Blu Mankuma. The trailer track was Master of Shadows by Two Steps From Hell.

Release

2012 was released to cinemas on November 13, 2009, in Indonesia, Mexico, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, China, India, Italy, Turkey, the United States, and Japan. According to the studio, the film could have been completed for a summer release but the delay allowed more time for production.

The DVD and Blu-ray versions were released on March 2, 2010. The two-disc Blu-ray edition includes over 90 minutes of features, including Adam Lambert s music video for Time for Miracles and a digital copy for PSP, PC, Mac, and iPod. A 3D version was released in Cinemex theaters in Mexico in February 2010. It was later released on Ultra HD Blu-ray on January 19, 2021.

Reception

Box office

2012 grossed $166.1 million in North America and $603.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $769.6 million against a production budget of $200 million, making it the first film to gross over $700 million worldwide without crossing $200 million domestically. Worldwide, it was the fifth-highest-grossing 2009 film and the fifth-highest-grossing film distributed by Sony-Columbia, (behind Sam Raimi s Spider-Man trilogy and Skyfall). 2012 is the second-highest-grossing film directed by Roland Emmerich, behind Independence Day (1996). It earned $230.5 million on its worldwide opening weekend, the fourth-largest opening of 2009 and for Sony-Columbia.

2012 ranked number one on its opening weekend, grossing $65,237,614 on its first weekend (the fourth-largest opening for a disaster film). Outside North America it is the 28th-highest-grossing film, the fourth-highest-grossing 2009 film, and the second-highest-grossing film distributed by Sony-Columbia, after Skyfall. 2012 earned $165.2 million on its opening weekend, the 20th-largest overseas opening. Its largest opening was in France and the Maghreb ($18.0 million). In total earnings, the film s three highest-grossing territories after North America were China ($68.7 million), France and the Maghreb ($44.0 million), and Japan ($42.6 million).

In 2020, the film received renewed interest during the COVID-19 pandemic, becoming the second-most popular film and seventh-most popular overall title on Netflix in March 2020.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 39% based on 247 reviews and an average rating of 5.20/10. The site s critical consensus reads, Roland Emmerich s 2012 provides plenty of visual thrills, but lacks a strong enough script to support its massive scope and inflated length. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 49 out of 100 based on 34 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews . Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B+ on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert praised 2012, giving it 3+1⁄2 stars out of 4 and saying that it delivers what it promises and since no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else, it will be, for its audiences, one of the most satisfactory films of the year . Ebert and Claudia Puig of USA Today called the film the mother of all disaster movies . Dan Kois of The Washington Post gave the film 4/4 stars, deeming it the crowning achievement in Emmerich s long, profitable career as a destroyer of worlds. Jim Schembri of The Age gave the film 4/5 stars, describing it as a great, big, fat, stupid, greasy cheeseburger of a movie designed to show, in vivid detail, what the end of human civilisation will look like according to his vast army of brilliant visual effects artists.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone compared the film to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, writing: Beware 2012, which works the dubious miracle of almost matching Transformers 2 for sheer, cynical, mind-numbing, time-wasting, money-draining, soul-sucking stupidity. Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail gave the film 1/4 stars, writing: As always in Emmerich s rollicking Armageddons, the cannon speaks with an expensive bang, while the fodder gets afforded nary a whimper. Christopher Orr of The New Republic wrote that the film s ludicrous thrills begin burning themselves out by the movie’s midpoint , and added: As the movie approaches its two-and-a-half hour mark, you, too, may feel that The End can’t come soon enough. Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph gave the film 2/5 stars, saying that it was dim, dim, dim, and so absurdly overscaled that we re not supposed to mind. Linda Barnard of the Toronto Star gave the film 1/4 stars, writing: the clunky script and kitchen-sink approach to Emmerich s global apocalypse tale… makes the movie fail on a bunch of fronts.

Accolades

Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards	Best Visual Effects	Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Mike Vézina	Nominated
NAACP Image Award	Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture	Chiwetel Ejiofor	Nominated
NAACP Image Award	Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture	Danny Glover	Nominated
Motion Picture Sound Editors	Best Sound Editing – Music in a Feature Film	Fernand Bos, Ronald J. Webb	Nominated
Motion Picture Sound Editors	Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film	Fernand Bos, Ronald J. Webb	Nominated
Satellite Awards	Best Sound (Editing and Mixing)	Paul N.J. Ottosson, Michael McGee, Rick Kline, Jeffrey J. Haboush, Michael Keller	Won
	Best Visual Effects	Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Mike Vézina	Won
	Best Art Direction and Production Design	Barry Chusid, Elizabeth Wilcox	Nominated
	Best Film Editing	David Brenner, Peter S. Elliot	Nominated
Saturn Awards	Saturn Award for Best Action, Adventure, or Thriller Film	2012	Nominated
Saturn Awards	Best Special Effects	Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Mike Vézina	Nominated
Visual Effects Society Awards	Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture	Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Josh Jaggars	Nominated
	Best Single Visual Effect of the Year	Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, Josh R. Jaggars, Mohen Leo for Escape from L.A.	Nominated
	Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture	Haarm-Pieter Duiker, Marten Larsson, Ryo Sakaguchi, Hanzhi Tang for Los Angeles Destruction	Nominated

Cancelled television spin-off

In 2010 Entertainment Weekly reported a planned spin-off television series, 2013, which would have been a sequel to the film. 2012 executive producer Mark Gordon told the magazine, ABC will have an opening in their disaster-related programming after Lost ends, so people would be interested in this topic on a weekly basis. There s hope for the world despite the magnitude of the 2012 disaster as seen in the film. After the movie, there are some people who survive, and the question is how will these survivors build a new world and what will it look like. That might make an interesting TV series. However, plans were later cancelled for budgetary reasons. It would have been Emmerich s third film to spawn a spin-off; the first was Stargate (followed by Stargate SG-1, Stargate Infinity, Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe), and the second was Godzilla (followed by the animated Godzilla: The Series).